Ahead of the confirmation hearing for John Brennan, who President Barack Obama nominated to head the CIA, the Obama administration has instructed the Justice Department to provide copies of a targeted killing memo to the two intelligence committees in Congress.

The Justice Department drafted a “white paper” explaining the legal basis for using the targeted killing program to assassinate US citizens. This “white paper,” released by NBC News this week, was provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as a substitute for the memo. Presumably, it was handed over after US-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a drone in September 2011.

Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter mid-January to Brennan informing him that he had been asking to see “secret legal opinions that contain the executive branch’s understanding of the President’s authority to kill American citizens in the course of counterterrorism operations” for the past two years. He had not been provided with the opinions themselves and asked Brennan to provide him access to the “opinions,” which outline the “government’s ability to target and kill Americans believed to be involved in terrorism.”

On February 4, just prior to when NBC News began to report on the Justice Department “white paper,” eleven senators including Wyden sent a letter requesting Obama have the Department provide any legal opinions on the President’s authority to “deliberately kill American citizens.”

Now that the Obama administration is no longer illegitimately keeping the targeted killing memo secret from senators, who under law should be able to see it, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has renewed calls for the administration to make the full memo public:

“While this is a small step in the right direction, democratic transparency requires President Obama to make the full memo available to the public. The United States is not a nation of secret laws, and a memo authorizing the killing of American citizens is too important to keep from the American people,” ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders said. “Everyone – not just select members of Congress – has a right to know when the government believes it can kill American citizens. This concession has taken far too long and falls far short of President Obama’s commitment to transparency he pledged to abide by since becoming president.”

But, Wyden had been requesting “secret legal opinions.” That suggests the existence of more than one memo. (Marcy Wheeler wrote in a recent post on how the release of the memos is being misreported.)

What the ACLU (and others) have been most interested in seeing is a copy of the Office of Legal Counsel memo from the Justice Department, which provides justification for the targeted killing of Al-Awlaki. There was no mention of what went into deciding to assassinate this man in the chilling but amateurish “white paper” that was released.

In a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the New York Times and the ACLU, the Justice Department, CIA and Defense Department argued in a case that it won that it did not have to disclose the legal basis for killing US citizens because it would reveal “classified and statutorily protected information.” It maintained it could not reveal whether memos had been drawn up to justify the killings of Al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki or Samir Khan because that would reveal whether the CIA was behind those killings or not. Essentially, the government contended it could keep secret interpretations of the law and the families of citizens assassinated by their own government have no right to know what agency was responsible for executing them.

Officials like Attorney General Eric Holder and Brennan made speeches in 2012 on the targeted killing program. The ACLU attempted to cite the speeches and statements made by the president during a Google chat and on television to bolster a case for releasing the memo. The government did not change its position.

As the ACLU pointed out in their targeted killing FOIA lawsuit, for years now, “Senior government officials have freely disclosed information about the CIA’s drone program, both on the record and off, while the CIA has insisted to this Court and others that the program cannot be discussed, or even acknowledged, without jeopardizing national security. One consequence is that the public’s understanding of the effectiveness, morality, and legality of the government’s bureaucratized killing program comes solely from the government’s own selective, self-serving, and unverifiable representations concerning it.”

The Obama administration has been all too willing to share vague details or snippets of information on the program to show that reasonable and conscientious people are in charge of deciding who does and does not get killed by drones. It has not been willing to talk about aspects of the program that would make it difficult to justify the operation of a targeted killing program. (It has even pressured media organizations to not release stories revealing details involving drone operations—and press like the Washington Post have complied.)

Last night, “The Daily Show” did a segment on what many Americans are learning about Obama administration’s targeted killing program. Host Jon Stewart says he might like to read the full memo and he was sure they would release it because in 2009 they released some other “touchy” global war on terrorism memos: the memos President George W. Bush used to justify torture.

The program shows a clip of the late Senator Ted Kennedy & then-Senator Joseph Biden, when they went after Attorney General John Ashcroft for keeping the memos from Congress. Biden threatened Ashcroft with contempt. If this is how things were under Bush, surely any drone strike memos would be made public now?

White House flak Jay Carney then appears and answers a question on whether the memos will be released. He says, “I just have nothing for you on alleged memos regarding potentially classified matters.” And, “Without going into the alleged existence of any particular memo or action, I can say what we cannot do is talk about classified operations.”

Stewart sharply states, “I don’t know what’s worse: the alarmingly ambiguous guidelines for our drone strike program or the fact that you’re saying we may not have written these alarmingly ambiguous guidelines down in memo form because I’m pretty sure the Justice Department has memos on it.” And he rightly points out, in comparing the rationale for releasing the torture memos, the Obama administration was publicly against the continued use of torture techniques. On the other hand, the administration intends to keep authorizing drone strikes so the lesson here is information on possibly illegal programs can be disclosed if the current administration in power does not intend to use them anymore.

Well done, Jon Stewart, Kevin, and FDL! The Senate hearing begins at 2:30 this afternoon (Thursday).

““Everyone – not just select members of Congress – has a right to know when the government believes it can kill American citizens.”

I would change this to read: Everyone – not just select members of Congress – has a right to know why the government believes it can kill American citizens. And that is only the beginning of the larger question about why this government believes it can target and murder anyone in the world .

I believe this action is treasonable in both cases, killing Americans without any due process, and targeting human beings in general for the same reason.

Impeachment is the answer to both of these, or we do not any longer have any rule of law in this country.

Damn Kevin, you just keep em coming. :) Are there three or more of you?
Keep it up. You sir, are a gem.

A few things here.

The Obama administration has been all too willing to share vague details or snippets of information on the program to show that reasonable and conscientious people are in charge of deciding who does and does not get killed by drones.

Oh for fucksake. reasonable and conscientious. right. To paraphrase a commenter on another blog..”Oh please spare the world those shitty little terms..reasonable and conscientious. They’re meaningless. It has zero legal significance. It was concocted by sophomoric whores for the Empire to cover murdering and torturing anyone they choose. It sounds like something a sixth-grader would make up.” unquote

Along with..”enhanced interrogations, extrajudicial killings. targeted killings, renditions, and all the other shitty little terms this narcissistic Cabal of maroons come up with to hide their War Crimes with. Ya know, I submit..these fuckers need to take the 10 Steps to De-Stupification course…immediately. Either that, or rewrite the Grand Unified Theory of Stupidity, cause right now, it’s like their carrying a big ole sign on their back that says…I AM FUCKING STUPID, KICK ME HARD!

One thing though..

“…which outline the “government’s ability to target and kill Americans believed to be involved in terrorism.”

Ability? ABILITY? WE KNOW WHAT THEIR FUCKING “ABILITY” IS…after all, they’re vaporizing innocent human beings all over the planet from 10k miles away!!
SheeesusHfuckingcrist. What we want to know is… Where do you get off thinking this is LEGAL…show us the WHOLE GODDAMN BALL OF WAX you morons!

Frankly..and with all due respect… Senator Wyden, the time for civility ended when we found out about those stinking Telecoms acquiescence to Bush..and THEN..the stinking Congress granting IMMUNITY. If it were me…I’d be SCREAMING at these lying sacks of shit bastards.

If they were ‘reasonable and conscientious’ they would know better than to break international and domestic laws that no amount of gerrymandering can trump. As Jon Stewart masterfully points out, It’s the Constitution, stupid!

Impeachment is the answer to both of these, or we do not any longer have any rule of law in this country.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! George, what do we have for our winning contestant today?
Well Johnny, we have a great prize of our contestant. (curtain pulls back) Yessireeebob, these three CIA…er…ahem..ummm.. Men in Black are here to escort our winner on ..(TA DA!)an immediate all expenses paid rendition…oops..er..”trip” around the world! You betcha. No standing in long airport lines, or those pesky TSA agents groping your balls…er…I mean…your crotch, or any of that VISA stuff. Nosireee. Only the best for our winners!. And to prep our winner for this trip, our Men in Black will personally guarantee your body is up to snuff for this grueling…oops..I mean..wonderful trip through hell…damn…I mean PARADISE! You betcha. First they’ll be treated to all the tortures.oops…DAMiT..he he he..sorry..I mean “treats” that money can buy! We’ve scheduled stops at some of the finest blacksites…fuck..there I go again…I mean beautiful luxurious dungeons…oh for fucksake…I mean “resorts” where they will be treated to brutal..fuck…I mean..absolute luxury for a week at a time. Yessireebob, four of the finest brigs..geeeezus..I mean resorts on the planet. You’ll be treated like a dog..er..I mean King! And THEN..the final destination…you got it…GITMO ..er..I mean..nevermind. Well Congratulations Winners!

The 14th applies the first ten to the States as I remember so he should have at least read them. I assume he skipped the Articles completely. Assuming also his fave Pres before himself was Andrew Jackson.

I was being sarcastic. Even if he taught only the preamble, he should have known the whole document.

I thought it was so ironic that he and Roberts together could not get a two line oath from the Constitution right. And both too arrogant to have a copy with them (though that is certainly more Roberts fault).

hmmmm, I seem to remember something about “redress of grievance’s” or something to that effect..on something called..er..I think it was that pesky ole piece of paper..let’s see..oh yeah..the Constitution. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! the constitution. Priceless.
Now that they’ve made it a crime to hold a protest around Obama or anyone the Secret Service protects, they’ll fill the FEMA camps exponentially. The more protests, the more the Fed Cartel will fill them. Either that, or send you to a Private Prison. You know, the ones your Judge owns stock in.

Add that to the whopping 1.6 BILLION rounds they purchased a few months back, and what do you have? Enough to kill every man, woman, child, dog, cat, bird and any other goddamned living thing in the entire USA.
Did I mention..psychopaths? IF not, I’ll replace it with what part of MASS MURDER is not coming across LOUD AND FUCKING CLEAR??????????

Yessireeebob. Add that fucking scumbag Feinsteins Gun Ban bill to the recipe, if it passes, will set all the Kings men in the exact position they want. All it will take is one GREAT MOMENT IN MONUMENTAL STUPIDITY on the Government’s behalf, and that will trigger it. And THEY know it.
So let’s see what we have here…
1. Permanent Detainment under NDAA..CHECK
2. And if they decide to murder you instead..they can. CHECK
3. Protest anywhere it means something, they can arrest you and throw away the key for 10 fucking years. CHECK

ya know, I think that calls for a drink. Bartender..one scotch, one bourbon, one beer…er…on second thought..make it doubles.

In regards to those ludicrous buffoons who, as our duly elected Senators on the “Intelligence” committee(what a fucking oxymoron), were “expected” to pose “tough questions” during Brennen’s confirmation hearings, I offer up the following quotes from another blog as it sums it up better than I could.

“Tough questioning.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Best laugh I’ve had for YEARS.

It is only due to the fact that U.S. government officials are extraordinarily obtuse and ignorant, and/or inveterate liars (with no exceptions at all on the national level at this point), and because virtually every voice in the media is similarly mentally and morally challenged to a degree that reduces them to a permanent vegetative state, that such an idea is not greeted by raucous, side-splitting laughter from coast to coast.”

Having posted that..I give you one Arthur Silber.
powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
God do I love the truth.